


Kicking Up Dust

by atlanticslide



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 19:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18059027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/pseuds/atlanticslide
Summary: Alex presses his hand against the small of Michael’s back, brings the other up to grip Michael’s neck.  He takes the chance to lean in and press his mouth against the side of Michael’s head, and Michael brings his good hand up to awkwardly grip Alex’s elbow.  He can feel his breathing slow down just a little, the tightness in his chest easing up as Alex rests his forehead against Michael’s temple.The dust below them stops swirling.





	Kicking Up Dust

**Author's Note:**

> idk, I just needed more of them in the high school era ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ No assumptions about what ultimately split them fully apart, but I'd like to believe that they had some more time together before that happened.

Two days after _that_ day, Michael tries texting Alex. 

_You ok?_

He gets no response. 

-

When he sees Alex at school a full day later, he trips over his own feet. Across the parking lot, Alex looks up and glances over to him, like he’d heard Michael fall from all the way over there, but quickly looks away, and Michael’s heart sinks.

Alex’s dad is behind the wheel of the car Alex has just gotten out of, and whatever he’s saying to Alex through the open window makes Alex bow his head and nod, slowly. Michael’s breath picks up pace, his heart starts racing. Fury is boiling up in him, so sudden that it feels strangling. The gravel as his feet begins shaking, banging against his sneakers.

He has to turn away before he blows out someone’s windshield. 

When he turns back, Alex’s dad is gone, and Alex is making his way into the school building, his head high and his chin defiant, his body squared against the casual taunts that Michael can see a couple of guys throwing his way. 

-

When they run into each other in the hall before third period, it almost feels inevitable. Alex is shoving a book hard into his locker and wearing a plain black t-shirt and looking frustrated and beautiful. Michael’s not actually sure if he wanted to run into Alex or didn’t want to run into him, but it’s happening, so he swallows hard and steels himself as he continues his pace down the hall. 

“Hey,” he says, trying to sound casual. Nothing about anything in his life right now is casual, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let anyone see that even as his heart is racing uncontrollably.

Alex startles a bit and drops the other books he’d been holding. “Hi,” he says, looking at Michael like he’s just woken up from a dream. Michael’s breath catches. 

Alex is missing the eyeliner and his hair is a little flatter than usual, but Michael is pretty sure that he’d be hot no matter what, especially when he looks at Michael so wide-eyed and open the way he is right now. All of Michael’s plans of staying cool fly out the window.

“You didn’t text me back,” he blurts out without really meaning too.

“I - what?”

Michael brings his good hand, his uninjured hand, up to grip the strap on his bag, desperate for something to make him feel less awkward, less jittery and anxious. “Yesterday. I texted you. I just wanted to see how you were, why didn’t you text me back?”

Alex swallows, looks away. “My dad took my phone.”

“Oh,” is all Michael can think to say. 

Someone shoulders him from behind and says, “Jesus, Guerin, the hell happened to your hand?” 

Michael looks down at the bandage he rewrapped this morning. “Door of my truck caught it,” he replies quickly, not looking at Alex. No one questions him on it, but it’s hardly a surprise; Isobel is the popular one, Max is the bookworm who everyone gets along with. Michael is the one people mostly don’t notice except to take note of the sleeping bags in the bag of his truck.

He turns back to Alex as the hallway mostly clears out. “So. I, um. When I texted yesterday, I wanted to see if you were okay.” He fiddles with his bag strap. “Are you okay?”

Alex is quiet for a long moment before he says, “I should be the one asking you that.” He reaches out to rest his fingertips against Michael’s wrist, his left wrist, just where the bandage ends, and Michael’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest. For just a second, the last few days disappear from his mind and he feels like he can breathe properly again. 

“You wanna get out of here?” he asks, the words out of his mouth before he’s even really given them any thought.

Alex looks up at him and nods, then follows Michael silently through the halls and out into the sunshine. 

-

Michael drives them to Foster’s Ranch, the only place he can really think of to go. Alex tenses every time they see a sign for the Air Force base - it’s on the other side of town, and Alex notes that his dad will be at work all day so there’s no chance of him catching them, but also notes that, “If he sees me and you together again… I really don’t know what he’ll do.”

Michael can’t think of how to respond to that. The drive is mostly quiet. Michael can’t find a comfortable place to rest his left hand, switching between hanging it out the window and resting it in his lap.

When Alex mentions Rosa Ortecho, Michael’s right hand grips the wheel so hard he’s sure it’ll leave a dent. 

Michael parks on the edge of the property, a ways away from the road. They know him well enough by now, the Fosters and the various farm hands who’ve run into him up there again and again over the years, and no one tends to be bothered by the weird kid who hangs around the property, staring up at the sky. 

He turns the car off and leaves the keys in the ignition as he tries to get the door open with his right hand.

“Here, let me - ” Alex says, reaching over him to pull the door handle. It’s the closest they’ve been since Alex had reached out to grab Michael off the floor of the shed before Alex’s dad had pulled Alex away and shoved him out the door, leaving Michael alone. Michael’s mind is a mess of wanting to cry and scream and blow something up and run his good hand across Alex’s back and press his face to Alex’s hair. 

They walk around to the back of the truck, and Michael glances up at the sky briefly, automatically, as Alex pulls the truckbed down. 

“Liz is a mess,” Alex picks up the thread of the one-sided conversation he’d been having as they drove. “Man, what a fucking shitty day.”

Michael doesn’t say anything. _Can’t_ say anything. His stomach is twisting, painful, and he just stares down at the ground below them. 

When they sink down to sit on the edge of the truckbed, Alex puts a little space in between them, and Michael’s not sure what to make of that, or how he feels about it. He rests his injured hand in his lap and stares out at the hills in the distance, squinting a little against the sun. As Alex goes on about Liz and how his dad is letting him out of the house for Rosa’s funeral and how Maria probably isn’t going to come back to school for the last few weeks of the year, Michael’s good hand balls into a fist, his short nails digging into his palms. He’s desperate to keep himself under control, but there’s a storm raging in him.

Alex finally pauses and looks over at him, must notice that he hasn’t said much since they got out of the car.

“Sorry, I’m just rambling,” Alex says, quietly. He rubs his palms over his jeans. “I’m nervous.”

Michael looks up at him then. “Why are _you_ nervous?” 

The look on Alex’s face is so broken and pained, it makes Michael ache a little. “My dad… he…”

“It’s not your fault,” Michael tells him, shaking his head a little, wanting to reach out. “Did he hurt you?”

Alex shrugs, sniffing. “Not much. Nothing he hasn’t done before.”

“He do that a lot?” Michael can feel himself starting to shake, his breathing going fast, ragged. 

Alex doesn’t answer, and they’re left staring at each other in silence for a long beat. Michael searches, briefly, over Alex’s face for any signs of cuts or bruising. 

“I spent the last few days waiting for the cops to come busting down our door,” Alex says with another small headshake. “And drag him off to jail or something.”

The thought makes Michael’s stomach churn. He’s been mired in a cloud of misery for days, sunk down in a desperate sense of anxiety so intense he barely left his truck. His thoughts volleyed from Isobel to Alex and he downed bottle after bottle of nail polish remover, desperate to numb every single thing he was feeling. 

The truth - that he’ll never tell to Alex - is that there’s been a part of him that’s been expecting the cops to find him and drag _him_ off to jail. 

“You could, you know,” Alex says, tentatively. “Go to the cops.”

“No,” Michael says automatically. There’s so many reasons why not - he learned early on that cops generally weren’t too keen on listening to him about something like this. And even if there was any chance that the Sheriff might actually believe that a decorated military man like Sgt. Manes assaulted him, just the thought of talking to any law enforcement right now makes him feel sick. 

He’s been over it and over it - whether they did the right thing; should they have told the authorities, or called Max and Isobel’s parents; whether there was any way they could have salvaged things and still protected Isobel. He hasn’t yet come up with a better solution - the terror of being found out for what they really are is so intense, it sometimes feels like everything in their lives comes second to keeping the secret.

And now they have another secret, and the weight of it is suffocating. 

“If you reported him, I mean,” Alex goes on, looking down as his hands as he gestures through the air between them. “There’s probably, like, evidence or whatever - and I was there, I saw him do it - ”

Michael’s chest is getting tighter. He can’t quite catch a breath. “ _No_. No. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” 

“I just. I hate cops,” he replies dumbly. “Nothing good has ever come from reporting shit. I don’t trust any of ‘um.” His good hand tightens into a fist again.

“Sheriff Valenti is - ”

“ _No_ ,” Michael insists. His voice sounds tight, high-pitched, even to his own ears. “It won’t do anything.”

Alex looks back at him. The scrutiny suddenly makes Michael nervous, itchy and uncomfortable and a little sick. 

“You need to at least go see a doctor,” Alex tells him. He moves his hand a little, like maybe he wants to touch Michael, but he keeps it resting on the truckbed between them. 

“I’m afraid of doctors,” Michael tells him. It’s not a lie. 

“Okay,” Alex replies, drawing the word out, unsure. “But you can’t just tough it out. That was - it was a really serious-” 

“It’s really not that bad,” Michael tells him, desperate. He has no idea if his voice is convincing right now. “It looks worse than it feels, in a week or two it’ll be good as new.” He tries to smile. 

“Guerin, man, come on,” Alex says, pleading. 

Michael’s head is starting to spin. It does hurt, it hurts more than anything he’s ever really felt and the thing is that it hasn’t really stopped hurting for three days straight and he’s absolutely _terrified_ that it’s never actually going to heal - he can barely move his index and middle fingers, can’t move his ring finger or pinky at all, and he’s been desperately trying to stave off thoughts of what he’ll do if the feeling never comes back.

Because they don’t actually know anything about themselves. They look like everyone else and talk like everyone else and if he looks closely at his hands he can see the outline of bones, knuckles, veins, just like everyone else. But he’s never had an x-ray in his life and has no idea what it might actually show up, and the thought of a doctor holding up a test and seeing something that shocks them is what keeps him up at night.

Or, it _was_ what kept him up at night, before Isobel blacked out and murdered three people. Before Michael had sex with someone who actually makes his heart flutter like in a goddamn fairytale, and then got his hand broken for it. Before he had to watch Alex get dragged away and the only indication that Alex wasn’t dead was the glimpse of him that Michael caught as Alex mowed the yard in front his house the next day. 

The dust below them is starting to swirl. Michael’s heart is hammering in his chest. His breathing is rushed. There’s too much right now, too much to handle, and all he wants is for someone to take care of it, take care of him, take care of all three of them. 

“Can we please,” he breathes out raggedly, his voice sounding small and strangled to his own ears. “Can we please just not talk about it? For a little while?” He can feel tears stinging his eyes, hear them in his voice, but he can’t stop them. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex replies quickly, sounding wounded. “God, I’m really, really sorry.”

“It’s not you, you didn’t do anything,” Michael replies desperately as he wipes his good hand down his face, shakes his head and tries to get his breathing under control. “It’s not even my hand, or your dad, it’s…” 

“Hey…” Alex reaches out to run his hand down Michael’s arm, and Michael almost vibrates right out of his body at the touch, hating and wanting it at the same time. 

“I’m sorry, it’s not you,” he says, still crying, not even really sure what he’s crying about, exactly. “I promise, I’m just… man I just get so _tired_ sometimes. I’m tired of who I am, I’m tired of being scared all the time.”

He takes a shuddering breath, watches pebbles go scattering across the ground and panicking all over again. 

“I fucked everything up,” he goes on, babbling and not totally aware of what he’s saying, thoughts of Isobel and Rosa, the drifter holding onto Isobel those years ago, Max setting the car on fire filtering through his mind like a montage. “I should’ve - I should’ve…”

“What’d you fuck up?” Alex rubs his shoulder up and down, moving around to rest his hand on the back of Michael’s neck, and the comfort feels worse than the pain in his hand. 

“Nothing, nothing.” He scrubs his good hand over his face again, breathes into it heavily. Rambles some more with things he probably shouldn’t say, but he can’t stop the words from falling out of his mouth. “I don’t know what I’m talking about. God, sometimes I wanna, like, escape my whole life. I’m so tired. I don’t know why I’m here, why I am the way I am. Sometimes I want to just be someone else.” His chest is heaving.

“Me too,” Alex replies quietly, his voice thick and full of something that Michael is too far gone to parse. Then he adds, “Want you to be someone else, I mean. I’m awesome the way I am.”

It’s stupid enough and surprising enough to shock a laugh out of Michael through his tears, and he drops his hand, turns to look at Alex. Alex grins at him, looking for just a split second like the kid Michael had kissed and laughed with in the shed three days ago. Michael laughs again, can’t help it, even as he cries.

Alex presses his hand against the small of Michael’s back, brings the other up to grip Michael’s neck. He takes the chance to lean in and press his mouth against the side of Michael’s head, and Michael brings his good hand up to awkwardly grip Alex’s elbow. He can feel his breathing slow down just a little, the tightness in his chest easing up as Alex rests his forehead against Michael’s temple. 

The dust below them stops swirling. 

They stay like that for several long moments, almost desperate not to let go, before exhaustion begins to seep through Michael’s veins and he shuffles them backwards so they can lie back on the truckbed. They’re side-by-side, shoulders touching, and Michael kind of wants to pull Alex into his arms, but can’t quite bring himself to make the move. Instead, he holds Alex’s left hand with his right, and strokes his fingers over Alex’s palm, tries to take comfort in the warmth of Alex’s body against his own. 

He’s never had something like this, and he has no idea exactly what to do with it.

They squint up at the sky, and for a few moments Michael doesn’t even look for spaceships. 

“Would you really want him to go to prison or whatever?” Michael asks after a while, his voice thankfully more steady than it was a few minutes ago. He strokes his thumb over Alex’s knuckles as he asks. 

“I don’t know,” Alex replies quietly. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier. I think about, like, what if he disappeared. Went to prison or rehab or something.”

“Does he drink?”

“Not really. Not that much.” He shrugs lightly against Michael’s shoulder and brings his free hand up to shield the sun from his eyes. “It’s just a fantasy, I guess. I don’t know. I could stay with one of my brothers, maybe. I could just finish high school and get out of town without worrying about him coming after me and dragging me back here or cutting me off or something.”

“You could still do that, you know. Take off, get out of here.” 

“It’s not that easy. God, I think about that all the time, though,” Alex sighs. “Get a ride to El Paso, cross the border. Head to, I don’t know. Baja. Always wanted to try surfing out there.”

Michael can almost picture it - Alex diving into the water, or riding on a surfboard like it’s a skateboard - Michael’s never really done either so he has no idea if it’s the same, but in his mind, Alex is great at it - sand in his hair, smile on his face. 

“But then I start thinking…” Alex goes on, his voice growing heavy. “My brothers. My family. I can’t just cut them all off, and what if he made them stop speaking to me or something. 

“Guess maybe it is easier not having a family,” Michael replies, not totally sure whether he actually believes the words. “No one to disappoint or leave behind.” Isobel springs into his mind suddenly, unbidden, and he starts to feel sick again. 

Alex is quiet for a long moment. Michael squeezes his hand, but Alex doesn’t do much to respond. 

“He wasn’t always like this,” he says, softly, after a couple of minutes of nothing but the rustling of the wind through the the truck’s open windows. “Back when we were little, he was… y’know, he was just a regular dad, I guess. He didn’t hit us, not that I ever saw. He was never, like, the greatest dad in the world, but. 

“And then my mom died, and then. I don’t know. He just got angry, like all the time. And then it was like everything I did just pissed him off even more, especially when he started realizing I was gay.”

Michael doesn’t know what to say to that, so he squeezes Alex’s hand again and shuffles a little so he can brush their legs together. 

Alex sighs again. “Sometimes - it’s stupid, but sometimes I think maybe he’ll go back to the way he used to be. If I just do what he wants, or if I stop mouthing off to him, or, or wearing eyeliner, or something.”

“People like that don’t change,” Michael says, sounding harsher than he means to. Alex tenses a little beside him, and Michael regrets his words immediately. He knows he’s right, though. He has way too much experience with the dregs of humanity to believe that people can really change who they are. People don’t change, and most people are shit. 

“What about you?” Alex says, his voice full of faux-casualness that Michael doesn’t call him on. “You must’ve gotten into a bunch of schools right? You could probably go anywhere with your grades.” 

“Yeah, I… I guess.” That’s the plan. That _was_ the plan. 

And suddenly, like a slap in the face or a hammer to the hand, he gets it. He thinks of Isobel again, and he gets it. “But I think I’m actually gonna defer for a year, take a year off,” he says, decision made only just now as he says the words. 

Alex doesn’t question him on it. Instead, he strokes Michael’s fingers with his own, brings their clasped hands to rest on his chest. 

“What if…” he starts, trails off. Starts again. “We could get out of here together. We could hit the road.”

Michael feels the spark of desire so deep in his bones that he almost shakes with it. A brief, perfect fantasy sinks into his mind, of driving his truck down dusty roads, weaving through the streets of far off cities, winding around mountains, parking on a beach, all with Alex in the passenger seat, both of them smiling and neither of them worrying about anything. 

It feels like one of the most tragic moments of his life, to shake his head and whisper, “I can’t.”

He swallows hard and holds onto Alex’s hand when he feels Alex start to pull away. Before Alex can say anything, Michael blurts out, “It’s Isobel - there’s been something going on with her, and I can’t - I want to make sure she’s okay.” 

The grip on his hand from Alex returns. “Is it something serious?” 

“She, uh - this guy, he assaulted her,” Michael says in a rush, weaving the lie out of tendrils of truth. “He tried to abduct her. Max and I got to ‘em in time, got her away from him, but she’s - she’s been real freaked out, y’know, all over the place…”

“Shit,” Alex says, stunned. 

“Don’t tell anyone,” Michael adds quickly. “Please. Especially her, she’d kill me if she knew I told anyone.”

“When have I _ever_ had a conversation with Isobel Evans?” Alex replies easily, calming Michael’s nerves just a little.

“I just feel like I’ve gotta stick around for a while.” He pauses, then says, quietly, “I can’t leave her right now.”

Alex is quiet for a long moment and Michael chews on the corner of his lip, worried about more questions, worried that he’s given something away. 

“Are you… you’re not, like - like in love with her or something?” 

Michael lets out a sudden, barking laugh at the idea of it. “No! Jesus, no, she’s my - she’s like a sister.” He keeps chuckling even as Alex continues. 

“‘Cause you guys and Max, you’re like _always_ together.”

“We’ve just known each other a really long time. Before I moved here, even.”

“Are you in love with Max?”

Michael just laughs at that and seizes the moment to shift around onto his side so he can lean down and kiss Alex, slowly, more slow and calm than anything they did a few days ago. Alex kisses him back, sighing into Michael’s mouth, and brings his free hand up to brush it through Michael’s hair, tangling his fingers in Michael’s curls. 

Kissing Alex is like drowning in something that Michael can’t name, can’t identify. It’s sunshine and warmth and comfort and there are things stirring up inside of him that he’s never felt before. Alex runs his thumb over Michael’s ear and Michael doesn’t quite know how to deal with it. 

They never had a chance to really let this sink in, this thing between them. He’d thought about it (agonized over it) for days up until the moment he kissed Alex in the museum - never thought of himself as gay, never thought of himself as much of anything, really; never had someone who looked at him the way that Alex looks at him.

It fucks him up, another thing that he still doesn’t quite know how to deal with, and had no time to process. What he _does_ know is that there’s nothing on Earth like kissing Alex, and it’s one of the first times in his life that he’s actually been glad to be here. 

Alex brushes his tongue against Michael’s upper lip, and Michael shifts his head a bit to try and taste another angle. It’s all a little awkward with his hand bandaged and unable to touch Alex the way he’d like, but when Alex kisses the corner of his mouth, Michael very nearly forgets about the pain in his hand altogether. He nearly forgets about Rosa and Isobel and the suffocating guilt he’s been floundering under for days.

He moves to shift his body over Alex’s, not thinking much about where this is going other than maybe brushing his mouth down Alex’s jaw, trying to find a comfortable position to rest his hand against Alex’s shoulder, when he picks up a vague noise, off in the distance.

Michael can feel the exact moment that Alex must hear it too, because his whole body tenses up. He pushes Michael away a few seconds later, and Michael rolls onto his back and then shoves himself up on his elbows, poking his head up to peer over the side of the truck and catching a glimpse of a car off in the distance. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Alex is cursing quietly beside him. Michael glances back to see that Alex has already managed to shuffle far enough away from Michael to put a small gap between them. His eyes have gone wide, wild, and he’s frozen in place but looking like he can’t decide whether to jump out of the truck or throw himself down against the truckbed and hide. 

Michael turns onto his left elbow, gingerly, trying not to accidentally bang his hand against the truck, and pushes himself up to get a better view of the other car - a truck, he can see more clearly now, and it looks familiar.

He flops back down onto his back with a sigh. Alex is breathing heavily, panting, so Michael turns to him to reach his uninjured hand out. Alex pushes it away, stays pressed against the side of the truck. 

“It’s okay,” Michael tells him easily. “It’s just Mr. Foster.”

Alex doesn’t answer.

Michael listens to the crunch of tires against dirt and stones as Mr. Foster pulls up next to them, waits for the sound of the truck’s door opening before he sits up, adjusting his t-shirt with a brief tug as he moves. He gives Mr. Foster a wave. Alex scrambles up next to him.

“Mornin’,” he calls out as Foster comes ambling over to them.

“Afternoon, more like,” Mr. Foster replies, taking off the cowboy hat he’s wearing to wipe a hand across his brow and then holding it up to shield his eyes from the sun as he peers at Michael and Alex. He’s got a gentle smile gracing his weathered features, one of the things that Michael has always liked about the man - there’s not many people that Michael would actually call _gentle_ , but Mr. Foster is one of them, considering how many times he’s caught Michael out here and never once raised his voice or his hand.

“Shouldn’t you boys be in school right about now?”

“Aw, we’re almost done,” Michael replies easily, smoothly adopting a persona that he doesn’t entirely feel. “Just a couple weeks more. Classes don’t matter much at this point.” 

“Hmm,” Mr. Foster rumbles, considering. He puts his hat back on, readjusts it a bit. “That’s what they all say right up until they kick you out. Be a shame to screw yourself up now, so close to gettin’ that diploma.” 

Michael shrugs, flinches a bit when he brushes his hand against the truckbed. He tries to push it behind his back, out of sight.

“Guess you’re probably right,” he says, squinting against the sun. “Just a shame to waste this kinda day, y’know?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Foster replies with a laugh. “Well, if I run into your principle, I won’t say I saw you.” He gives them a wink a nod of his head before turning to head back to his truck. 

Michael lets out a short laugh - Mr. Foster could go full days without seeing anyone but his ranch hands, so they both know the likelihood of him running into anyone is pretty slim. 

Alex hasn’t moved an inch since Foster parked next to them, but he springs up as soon as the other truck is farther than spitting distance. Michael tries to grab his hand, missing by an inch and ending up flailing a bit after him.

“We should go,” Alex says, mumbling the words into his chest. He hops down from the truckbed, kicking up a small cloud of dust as he hits the ground. 

“We don’t have to,” Michael tells him. Worry suddenly begins to gnaw at his gut. “Mr. Foster, he’s not gonna say anything about seeing us out here.”

Alex is shaking his head. “No, no, this was a bad - we just need to get out of here, get back to school.”

“Alex,” Michael sighs, the worry growing bigger, that they’re losing this moment. Or maybe it’s already lost. 

“He _saw_ us,” Alex spits out, fear making him sound almost mean, even though Michael knows he’s not actually angry.

“Aw, dude, he doesn’t know what he’s seeing,” Michael replies, laughing a little. “He’s _old_ , he’s an old fashioned cowboy kinda guy, I don’t think he even knows what...” he waves his uninjured hand through the air, searching for the words. “What _homosexuality_ or whatever even is. He’s more likely to think we were getting high than hooking up. Hell, he’d probably be more likely to think we were getting high even if he actually saw us making out.”

Alex starts shaking. Visibly, noticeably, impossible to ignore. He runs a hand through his hair and then over his mouth and paces around in front of Michael.

“I need to go,” he says, his voice tight and anxious. “We need to go, this was a-”

Michael is sure that he was going to say _a mistake_ , and his heart sinks just a little bit. He nods and breaks his gaze away from Alex, pushes himself off the truckbed to stand and head around to the front of the truck.

“Yeah, okay,” he says as he goes, trying not to let the hurt come through in his voice. He gets back in the driver’s side of his truck and Alex takes another moment before following after him, during which Michael briefly indulges himself and leans forward to rest his head against the steering wheel. 

“Ready?” he says, trying to perk his voice up, as Alex gets into the truck. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just reaches to turn the key in the ignition.

Alex stops him, his hand covering Michael’s on the keys. Michael freezes and looks up at him. Alex looks pale and shaky and so apologetic. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “I’m freaking out, I know that.”

“It’s okay,” Michael replies automatically. Alex squeezes his hand and cuts him off before he can say anything else.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” he says again. He pulls Michael’s hand away from the key and laces their fingers together. He looks away, looks down at their clasped hands. Michael keeps watching him. Alex sighs, heavily. “I’m really tired of being scared all the time too.”

There’s a lot still unsaid between them - about what happened the other day, about who they are to each other and where they go from here - but Michael’s not really sure that it all _needs_ to be said, because Alex’s words hold so much. And he gets it. They’re both people who don’t get a lot of choices in their lives and have to deal with all of the shit that gets thrown their way.

He squeezes Alex’s hand. 

Maybe, though, the one thing they can choose is each other.


End file.
